Internationalisation of higher education: the gap between national policy‐making and institutional needs

The article discusses the impact of the growing emphasis on internationalisation on higher education institutions. Based on case studies of 12 Scandinavian universities and colleges, it is shown how issues related to internationalisation trigger processes of trying to enhance the institutional capacity for strategic decision‐making and institutional integration through processes of formalisation, centralisation and professionalisation. Based on the institutional history and tradition, strategic ability and institutional characteristics, the outcomes of this process still show a considerably degree of variation in the motives and institutional adaptation to internationalisation. In the conclusion, it is argued that future policy‐making in the field of internationalisation should pay attention to the diverse needs of higher education, and develop policies that allow more flexibility and autonomy at the institutional level.     

Improving the Odds: Identifying Language Activities that Support the Language Development of Preschoolers with Poorer Vocabulary Skills

The aim of the current study is to determine what language activities Norwegian preschool children took part in, and to examine whether these language activities predict children’s language comprehension. We tested children (n?=?134) with language measures at age 4/5 and age 5/6 and interviewed their teachers (n?=?71) about the kinds of language activities the children engaged in during that school year. Teachers reported a variety of classroom language activities, ranging from informal language stimulation of everyday situations to more explicit language activities such as book reading, language games, vocabulary training and school preparation groups. Book reading every day significantly predicted children’s language comprehension.     

Permanent and temporary work practices: knowledge integration and the meaning of boundary activities

Knowledge integration is a critical topic in current knowledge management research and practice. Research on this topic focuses primarily on how knowledge is integrated within a work setting. A less researched area is knowledge integration between different work groups. The purpose is hence to describe and analyze how knowledge is integrated between different work groups. We present two intensive case studies – one permanent and one temporary (project) work settings – which were studied using a practice-based perspective. A main result of the study is that knowledge integration in the two cases was more complicated than the literature suggests. Both differences and similarities were found between the two cases. Differences were seen in the use of boundary spanning activities and boundary objects, whereas similarities were found in the organizational structures and mechanisms, that is, purposes, rules, and infrastructures, which facilitated the integration of knowledge and/or functioned as obstacles and impediments.     

Young people’s experiences of parental involvement in youth sport

Recently parental involvement in youth sport has intensified, challenging the understanding of youth sports as an arena where adolescents can develop their identity and autonomy. On this background, our study explores how adolescents understand and negotiate their parents’ involvement in sport and how they define ideal and undesirable forms of parental involvement. Our empirical setting is Norway, and we draw on data from 16 focus group interviews among 13–14-year-olds (n?=?92) recruited from two lower secondary schools. The analysis shows that young people distinguish between different aspects of the sport activity when defining ideal and undesirable forms of parental involvement. When discussing sport as a healthy activity necessary for physical and social development, the young people interviewed approve of parents’ role in regulating and encouraging participation. When considering the athletic aspects and peer sociability, however, they see parental involvement as mostly undesirable. The analysis also shows that the adolescents generally describe their parents as attentive to the boundaries their children draw for them about levels and types of involvement. Therefore, young people should be seen not only as subjected to parental involvement but also as active co-constructors of valid parental roles in and beyond the sporting arena.     

A developmental study of the relationship between reading development and the self-system

The aims of this three-year longitudinal study were to examine 1) the concurrent development of different components of the self-system; 2) how the development of this self-system relates to cognitive and metacognitive development in reading; and 3) whether or not there are gender differences both in the development of the self-system as well as in its relation to the development of reading. One hundred and seventy-eight elementary school children were first assessed in the fourth grade and then again in each of the two following years. A similar pattern of intercorrelations between self-system components was evident for boys and girls, and this pattern was quite stable across the three school grades. In addition, similar patterns of moderate relations between the self-system and cognitive and metacognitive development in reading were observed across time. According to these findings, there appears to be some stability, consistency and coherence in how late elementary school children’s beliefs about themselves as learners are organized in their self-system. It is also evident that children of this age are able to make valid self-appraisals of their capabilities.     

Stability of biases in self-evaluation and relations to well-being among elementary school children

This paper aims to investigate to what extent a bias in self-evaluation is an enduring characteristic among children, and whether there is a relationship between the trajectory of children's self-evaluation bias over a five-year period and their psychosocial adjustment. 462 children (200 boys) in Grade 3 (mean age = 8.6 years old) or Grade 4 (mean age = 9.7 years old) at the outset of the study participated following their parents’ written consent. The group-based approach using a multinomial modeling strategy allowed identifying five groups based on changes in the children's self-evaluation bias over the five-year period. Children in the stable and highly positive bias group stood out as having markedly more positive scores on all indices of psychosocial adjustment, and also outperformed the other children in achievement in language arts and math.     

Compulsory Higher Education Teacher Training in Sweden: Development of a national standards framework based on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Today visible proofs of excellence in teaching and learning are increasingly important aspects of institutional branding in higher education (HE). Teaching competence is brought forward as a central aspect of the quality of programmes. Still, the induction of new university teachers is managed in many different ways. Approaches may vary according to how teaching competence is perceived; as growing from practice only, requiring formal courses or, for instance, outlined in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) movement. In Sweden, the HE Ordinance from 2002 states that to get permanent positions, lecturers should have completed Compulsory HE Teacher Training (CHETT). The size and organisation of the courses were not regulated in the Ordinance and institutional practices varied. In a three‐year project intended learning outcomes for CHETT was suggested. These outcomes are based on SoTL and linked to an estimated work‐load of 10 weeks. Based on a national survey in 2006, institutional responses to the proposals are analysed.     

A path analysis of basic need support,self-efficacy,achievement goals,life satisfaction and academic achievement level among secondary school students

Teachers’ support of basic psychological needs, self-efficacy, achievement goals, life satisfaction and academic achievement level was measured in a sample of 240 secondary school students (8th and 10th grades). Correlation analysis showed significant positive relations between all of the variables, except for the relation between need support of competence and performance goals. A subsequent path analysis showed that these variables could be accounted for by a structural model that described basic need support as predictors of self-efficacy and achievement goals, which in turn predicted academic achievement level and perceived life satisfaction. Analysis of intra-class correlation and design effect showed that need support of relatedness also was accounted for by class level responses. Theoretical and practical implications were discussed in terms of the importance of basic need support as a predictor of personal motives in educational settings as well as the students adjustment to school and life.